Unless you were brought up in England, the name David Icke will summon up the image of a man railing against the machine and accusing the hidden government and masters of the New World Order (NOW). If, though, like me you are on the upper side of 30 and grew up in England, the name would be as familiar to you as butterscotch biscuits and PG tips tea, for his voice and face were beamed into every household in Britain most nights of the week and every Saturday afternoon when the whole country sat around the TV transfixed by Grandstand, the most watched show in Britain. This Saturday afternoon ritual had replaced Sunday morning worship for most of the inhabitants of England's green and pleasant land. For all but those who new him intimately, David Icke was a bastion of English normality.

Prior to becoming a sports journalist (the second most sought after profession for English schoolboys), David was a professional footballer whose promising career as a goalkeeper was cut short by extreme arthritis at a very early age. It was David's tenacity that overcame this affliction, enabling him to continue as a professional footballer for as long as he did. And, after retiring in his mid 20s, this same dedication saw him work his way up from a junior newspaper position in a dwindling provincial town to one of the top jobs in sports media, arguably in the world.

Yet, as with his football career, once he clawed his way to the pinnacle the dissatisfaction would creep in; it was obvious to viewers that David, with his understated demeanour was not your average television presenter jockeying for position or ego elevation.

And so it was that nearing the height of his journalism career, David underwent an amazing change and transformation. As far as the British public could see, one week he was presenting late night snooker in standard BBC suit and tie, the next he was wearing aqua shell suits and lecturing the asleep English public on the fundamental truths of life and, not long afterwards, publishing a book with himself naked on the cover.

If he were just anybody in England this transformation would have gone quite unnoticed; it would have been put down to a midlife crisis or an emotional breakdown. But because David was a familiar name and face to everyone in Britain, together with his incredible tenacity and apparent disregard for people's opinions of him, for a while he was on the news each day - this time not as a presenter, but as a news item and spectacle.

He held press conferences to explain the awakening he had undergone and sought to lecture the powers that be about where people should direct their focus - away from keeping the industrialised machine churning along and towards greater spiritual truth and awareness. Overnight, David went from Mr Normal to the laughing stock of the country; he was the butt of jokes and ridicule from Land's End to John O'Groats. He was obviously in some kind of altered state as his brain attempted to balance all the energy and information that had been downloaded into it, which, in some ways, was a blessing, as ridicule may be a safer place than scorn; neither individuals nor societies enjoy their shadow being exposed.

As a teenager watching this transformation play out in my sitting room, and finding some of David's many television interviews that followed excruciating as he was mocked by the nation's best loved presenters in front of 17 million viewers, I could also feel something deeper occurring that I would later come to recognise as the hero's journey. I saw him grappling with, and trying to make sense of, a deep spiritual experience and surrendering to the will of the Divine to be come a servant delivering this message to his fellow humans at the Divine's bequest.

I thought of Isaiah in the Bible and how his visions and entreaties for his society to change its ways, now praised in the Bible, would have been perceived by the people in control of society, not wanting their position or the status quo disturbed. And how much more so in the 20th century with the juggernaut of Western materialism so out of control. And then I went back to sleep trying to fit into society as a young English man.

That was until seven years later I underwent a somewhat similar wake up experience. And so I remembered David Icke and turned to some of his books for solace, comfort, answer and sense of shared connection. His is an incredible life story, the tale of striving for excellence against foes aimed at destroying the true civilisation, that of compassion, care and common decency. His Goliath was not a monster in physical form, but the same abhorrent archetypes hidden in the heartless and dysfunctional systems of our time.

David set up home on the Isle of Wight, a short ferry ride off the southern coast of England. He spent as little time at the BBC as possible, instead spending as much of his spare time with his young family and nature. It was his interest in preserving the natural environment that that led him to join a nature group and later the British Greens party where he came face to face with the corruption behind many local and national decisions. In a local court case brought in an attempt to protect a parcel of nature, it was obvious to all that the decisions were made at a meeting of the local Freemasons only for the charade to be played out in court later. David had come face to face with the web of control and could see the false hope of change through current governmental systems.

It was at this time, around 1990, that David began to feel a presence around him, at times very close to him. He knew what his senses were telling him but this barked against all his previous experience. He relates: "After the presence persisted for several days I called out for higher help, that if what I was experiencing was true to fully reveal itself. A short while later I was at a newsagent's shop with my young son. As I was leaving, an energy bolted my feet to the floor and I was told internally in no uncertain terms, to go to the shelf on the other side of the shop with books for sale. I was reluctant as I knew the shop well and the books were only romance novels. The energy near enough dragged me across to the books where my hand outstretched to pick up a book, Mind to Mind by Betty Shine."

He read the book in a day and the next day contacted the author whom he had found out was Britain's most loved psychic and spiritual healer. Over the next few weeks, David had four sessions with her for healing and psychic guidance that clearly revealed the reason for this new spiritual presence in his life.

He continues: "I was told that there was going to be a spiritual revolution in the world during my lifetime, a vibration change that was going to break people out of their coma and collective amnesia. As this vibration change occurs and the earth integrates, it will cause earthquakes and many earth changes. This change would bring many hidden things to the surface and that I would have much knowledge and information put into my mind and at other times I would be led to it. There would be no need for arduous seeking. I would only need to follow the clues as this destiny had been arranged a long time ago. I would face great opposition but would always be protected."

Betty went on to say that David would be on a stage with large audiences listening to his message. Most importantly, David was told his job was to keep his mind open and ask if the information was supportable, rather than blindly believe or dismiss out of hand.

David set to work writing his first book The Truth Vibration that he completed at the end of 1990, after which he followed his guidance and took a trip to Peru. While there, he visited the temple site of Sulistani near Lake Titikaka. A mound with an ancient standing stone called out to him and once next to it a huge amount of energy was downloaded into him; he stood with arms outstretched as it surged into him for the next 45 minutes to an hour, only broken by a huge downpour of rain that came unexpectedly out of the blue skies. The initiation, David says, was a bursting open of his personal reality bubble; the computer of his brain was now immersed in a torrent of higher awareness.

It was to take several years for him to integrate the full extent of this benediction, the harvest of which we are reaping through David's many books. He returned to England and the media circus that greeted his first book. He was scorned by many as TV sports presenter turned prophet. Again, this blunt breaking down of the ego served an important purpose for what he was to share in the coming years could not be shared by someone concerned about their standing in the current world.

We are now living in the times that conclusively prove this prediction, with volcanic eruptions and earthquakes affecting every continent. But 21 years ago, when these words were transmitted to David, there was nothing tangible to go on. Yet the message was clear.

At first, he lectured to empty town halls, with the population still deeply asleep. Yet as the years went by, David's message expanded and deepened - and events began to prove his statements. Now, David attracts large audiences all over the world as he speaks about the cutting edge of earth changes and the forces resisting our consciousness expansion. He tells us that it is through awareness of these forces that we discover the liberating truth. In retrospect, it is clear that the exact skills David required to enact his life's mission where crafted in his earlier life experience - the tenacity to overcome pain and discomfort through sport, and the communication skills through television journalism, not to mention his high profile that gave him the platform for his message.

I had a Skype interview booked with David, connecting me to his one bedroom flat in Ryde on the Isle of Wight. I had asked for 30 minutes, but David who explained that he had just finished his daily 8-10 hour writing and researching marathon, beavering away in his flat like a biblical mystic in a Qumran cave, chatted away for well over an hour, sharing of himself deeply and attentively.

Despite my keenness to interview him and my intuitive good feeling, I didn't quite know what to expect; my judgemental mind was wondering if he would be a paranoid conspiracy theorist, or just odd. Immediately, I felt very comfortable and at ease with the sense I was talking with a very sincere man dedicated to waking up the English-speaking world to the truth of our existence and helping with this huge planetary vibrational shift. When David spoke with his soft lilting voice, sharing deep wisdom very humbly, punctuated by his self effacing humour, I felt great love for him, the love I have felt in the presence of monks, nuns, indigenous elders each in their own way giving their lives over to the Divine in service to the common cause. As he says: "My job is to join the dots."

David is currently holed up in his flat writing and researching his next book What's Happening in the World, a distillation of the current process of change in the world, due out in early 2012. He will be touring extensively through Australia and New Zealand commencing in September 2011.